“Sorry. Rental’s only insured for me.” Frankly he was thrilled when The Tank had died and she announced she wasn’t going to replace it. He imagined the town breathed a collective sigh of relief, too. “Do you even have a driver’s license anymore, Mom?”
“Yes sirree! I’m going to keep it in my wallet until it expires, and then I’m going to keep it there until I expire just in case my mind goes and I can’t remember who I am.”
They both laughed, but the joke struck Jacob in a raw place. He’d just represented a multimillionaire corporate client whose wife suffered from Alzheimer’s. “I’d give everything I own to have her back, to trade in some of the time I spent in the office for just one more vacation with her,” he’d told Jacob. “All this wealth and what good does it do? I can’t buy her memory back. Can you even imagine?” Jacob had sat across from him in the gentleman’s plush office. “My wife of fifty-four years looked right at me and said, ‘I used to have a husband like you.’ I’ll tell you, I’m a damn tough guy, but I bawled like a baby after I tucked her in that night.”
Jacob shook his head as if to knock the memory of the conversation from his mind and set to work pondering where he might take his mom while he was here. He knew she missed “gallivanting around,” as she used to call it. He stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek far enough that it protruded outward like a jawbreaker might be rolling around in there, something he’d done since he was a kid—but only when his wheels were really turning. He’d had to train himself to leave the habit behind when he sat in a tense courtroom.
Dorothy took note of his cheek. “What are you thinking about, Jacob Henry?”
“I’m thinking about where we could go for a night or two. My bags are already packed and you could just throw a few things in that new hot pink backpack Josh gave you for your birthday—and by the way, now I see why you like that kid so much,” he said, staring at the backpack she’d left on the kitchen counter. “I think a short road trip together might be good for both of us. You must be sick of being stranded here in Pardon-Me-Ville.”
She tilted her head as she considered his statement. “As odd as this sounds, perhaps even to me, I’m content here for the most part. Oh,” she said, pausing a moment while tapping her fingertips together, “I’d still like to be able to fire up The Tank to drive May Belle to La Feminique the way I used to, or run to Hethrow to do whatever, or stop in at the Landerses and torment Arthur for a spell.” Arthur’s old garage was on the Landerses’ property. She smiled at the memory of The Tank’s hood in the air, Arthur’s body folded over the front end, his head stuck down in the engine while the two of them engaged in lively bantering. “Or check out that new restaurant in Yorkville Nellie Ruth raves about, see if they got a New York dish on the menu yet.” Jacob raised his eyebrows. “Long story for another time,” she said. “But mostly when I get a hankerin’ to run away it’s just to head to the farm, have me a good long walk down by the creek or spend an hour or two in the barn. Other than that, though, I’m mostly happy in my little house in my little town with all my friends around. Of course, I wish my family lived closer, but . . .” she stopped and pursed her lips, “no, I wouldn’t move to Denver or Philadelphia either. You boys would be the only people I’d know and it wouldn’t take you long to get plum sick of trying to entertain me. Besides, how would the Happy Hookers ever get along without me!” She winked at her handsome son.
“It makes me feel good to know you’re content here, Mom. I know leaving the farm and giving up driving were really hard for you. I don’t know if I’ve said this or not, but I’m proud of the way you’ve adjusted.” She folded her hands together, gave an upward nod to acknowledge the One who’d seen her through.
“You know, I don’t know about going somewhere for a night or two,” she said, shifting the subject, “let’s table that idea for the moment. But maybe while you’re here you could help me put up a few Christmas decorations. That would be just dandy! I let most of them go in the auction, but I believe I’ve got me a few in a box or three somewhere. I think maybe that kind of stuff ended up in the closet in the back bedroom where you’re staying since the boys left. I don’t know where else I could have possibly put it. This little house doesn’t exactly abound with storage space.” Jacob scooted his chair back. “Oh, not right this minute, son! Just some time before you go and only if you feel like it.”
“Speaking of Christmas, what’s going to happen with the Hookers’ Christmas party now that you’re not at the farm?” He cast his eyes around her tiny place. “You used to get quite the mob every year.”
“Mob indeed. That party grew to about sixty or seventy people the last few years. Biggest holiday shindig around.” She screwed up her face. “Don’t know what’s gonna happen now, though. I’d been kind of hoping Katie might let me host it out at the farm. Or co-host it . . . or. . . .”
“Did she turn you down?”
“Haven’t brought it up. Timing never seemed right.”
“Maybe you could hold it at the park district building or something. Besides, you sure people would want to gather out at the farm now that she owns it? From what I could tell at the auction, she was pretty much considered an outsider. ‘That City Slicker,’ I believe it was.”
Dorothy smiled, paused a moment before she answered. “They still call her the City Slicker. But oh, she’s a smart one all right! She sometimes calls herself that now, and right to people’s faces, which really gets ’em good. Our very own Acting Mayor Gladys McKern used to be one of her biggest opponents, but I think Gladys was just jealous of Katie. By now, I think she has all but won Gladys over with her new mini-mall venture.”
“Mini mall?” he said, shaking his head. He pictured a tacky strip mall sprouting up along the highway near the edge of town.
“Katie bought the old Taninger building—you remember Les and Irene and their big old furniture store on the square, don’t you?—and she’s going to convert it into a mini mall. I’ll tell you, everybody is so excited about the possibilities! She’s going to maybe bring in an antiques place and a repairman, a tea room. . . . She said she wants to try to breathe new life into our old Pardon-Me-Ville of a square.”
Jacob’s mood seemed to darken. “Interesting. Of course, anything she does to add value to Partonville certainly ups the price of the farm, now doesn’t it.” He’d sounded nearly surly by the end of his sentence.
“Yes. And it would up the price of my little house here, too, and the Landerses’ farm and Harry’s Grill and . . . well, nothing wrong with that! The types of stores she wants to bring in would give a few folks the chance to make some extra dollars, too, whether they’d be working in them or maybe putting crafts on consignment—she’s talking about a consignment store or. . . . Even May Belle is hopeful about the chance to make some extra money with her baking since there’s talk of that tea room. Times have been hard around here, Jacob, what with the mine layoffs. There’s even a rumor they might close down the Number Nine, which could be devastating. And as far as business, aside from Swappin’ Sam’s, Partonville doesn’t have a single drawing card right now.” She gave a strong nod of approval. “I for one am excited about the whole mini mall. And I’ll tell you, when that woman puts her mind to something, she’s got the courage, determination and financial resources to make it happen. She’s hoping to get the renovations on the building started before Christmas.”
Jacob didn’t want to squelch his mother’s optimism, but the whole idea of Katie’s infiltrating every aspect of Partonville fed his wariness about her. He just didn’t know what to think about that woman, so he decided not to. “Let’s go find those decorations, Mom,” he said, launching himself out of his chair and rolling up his sleeves.
6
“I can’t wait for Christmas vacation. After four days off for Thanksgiving, being back at school stinks,” Kevin said, right before shoving a fork twirled with spaghetti into his mouth, two-inch wild strands hanging from it this way and that. He chomped, swallowed
and made a face. “For one thing, even my mom’s leftover turkey casserole—with peas in it—tastes better than this slop.”
Josh, sitting across the lunchroom table from his buddy Kevin Mooney, sucked the end of a noodle until it reeled up into his mouth (his mother would ground him for a month if she saw that), the final inch breaking off and dropping down onto his plate. “Doesn’t even slurp right,” he said, grabbing his fork and knife and proceeding to cut his entire pile into little squares.
Deborah Arnold sat next to Kevin, so close to him there was barely room for her to lift her hand to her mouth. They’d been quite the item since the Pumpkin Festival dance, not to mention the hot-buzz couple around school, what with Kevin being Mr. Jock and she a former prom queen. With perfect etiquette, she used her spoon as a receptacle to swirl her spaghetti into a tidy loop-de-loop around the end of her fork. She opened her mouth just so and slid the orange little ball in while observing Josh’s completely inappropriate cutting procedure, then she crinkled up her nose. Josh glanced up and noticed her expression. “See, it is awful!” he said. “Trust us, men know these things.”
“You know, I’ve never seen anyone,” she paused and wrinkled her nose again, “cut their spaghetti before,” she said, daintily wiping her mouth with the corner of her paper napkin before folding it and placing it atop her spaghetti, then peeling the orange she’d selected for dessert.
“The Manners Gestapo strikes again!” Kevin said, opening wide his eyes, throwing up his hands and trembling his head as though he were terrified, clearly making fun of both of them.
Josh grinned at his buddy, scooped up one of his perfectly square bites, shoveled it in, chomped and grimaced. “Squares don’t taste any better. I hope I see Shelby coming in for her lunch hour when we leave. I gotta warn her.” He took another bite, swallowed it whole and washed it down with a gulp of milk. “I don’t remember the cafeteria spaghetti ever tasting this putrid. Makes me wanna hurl.”
Deb was still peeling her orange, carefully digging her polished nails into the rind, trying to peel it in one length, occasionally inspecting her fingertips to see if she was ruining her manicure. “Josh, how’s your mom’s mini mall coming? I can hardly wait! I’ve heard buzz about an upscale fashion boutique, a spa, a diamond store,” she stopped talking while she removed the last bit of peel, smiling at her perfect one-piece conquest, “a rare book store, designer home decorations, imported rugs. . . .”
“Last I heard, she was talking about a pet store that sold exotic monkeys,” he said, grinning at Kevin.
“You two! Can you ever be serious about anything?”
“Well, I can only speak for myself,” Kevin said, “but here’s serious for ya: the Lakers are fourteen and six! How about that, Josh?” Even though Josh didn’t really follow basketball, or any professional sports, for that matter, he said, “Now that is serious, my man.” He and Kevin wrapped knuckles across the table. Deb shook her head in disgust, gathered her books, gave Kevin a quick peck on the cheek and said she needed to visit the ladies room before the next class began. She noticed Anita and Becky staring at her, or rather at Josh. Give it up, you two, she thought. He’s taken. They’d had hopeless crushes on Josh since the first day of school when he’d arrived as the mysterious new hunk from the big city. Now they were smiling and waving at him. At least it better be Josh they’re batting their eyes at! She flashed a look back toward the table. Those two “boys,” she thought, were so busy entertaining themselves that neither one noticed the girls anyway. Kevin and Josh had both been acting like constant goof-offs lately, which was really starting to get tiring. To be honest, she’d always thought Kevin was more mature than was turning out to be true. Maybe they deserve those bimbos’ batting eyes. Oh, look! There’s Kirk Webster from the debate team. Nice plaid shirt. I heard they won last week, too. Hm.
“Diamond store?” Josh asked Kevin incredulously after Deb was out of earshot. “Man, how does this kind of gossip get started? I might not be a whiz at economics, but even I know a diamond store doesn’t make sense in Partonville.”
“Heard your mom mention anything about a sporting goods store or a climbing wall?” Kevin asked, pretty sure that would never happen, but a guy could dream.
“To be honest, I haven’t heard many specifics about her project lately. All I know is every once in awhile she gets out this plastic green filing box with a lock-down lid, shuffles files and papers around, bangs on her calculator, scribbles notes, puts it all away and says she’s got to start collecting bids.” He didn’t mention how much he secretly wished the whole project would just go away. He worried she’d never be around anymore, like back before they’d moved to Partonville. Things were definitely better between them now, but would it last?
And poor Mr. Lawson. Try as he might, Josh couldn’t keep the images of that old upside down car from resurfacing, especially after Pastor Delbert had made the announcement in church Sunday morning. Thank goodness his mom hadn’t plied him for more details—yet—about his trip home from Chicago. He wasn’t ready to share his own carelessness. Never would be, for that matter.
He’d had some terrible nightmares last night, strange images of heads floating in a fog, lines of eyebrows pasted on mirrors. He was still tired in school today and he was having trouble concentrating. He remembered the first time he’d met Rick Lawson, right after he and his mom arrived in Partonville to handle his great aunt’s funeral and stuff. He’d never seen such a mess of an office in his life. But much to Josh’s surprise, the guy had turned out to be interesting, somebody he enjoyed chatting with.
It’s not that Josh ran into Mr. Lawson that often, but when he did, Mr. Lawson always remembered his name, asked about his mom, about Shelby (the Partonville grapevine in action, Josh would think), how things were going in his new school. In fact, one day Josh had stopped by Harry’s for some fries while his mom ran errands. He’d sat down on a stool next to Mr. Lawson and the guy ended up picking up his tab, said he’d appreciated his mother’s business, looked forward to working with her in the future. And now, now Rick Lawson had no future, Josh thought. He wondered if he’d been dead in his car when he’d driven by. The thought of it sent a shiver down his spine.
“Josh-o! Where’d ya go, space cadet? Somebody walk over your grave?” Kevin was just teasing him by repeating some old superstition about shivering and graves, but it gave Josh the ultimate creeps since he’d just been thinking about . . . death.
Josh took a final gulp of milk from his carton, tossed it on the lunch tray, retrieved his backpack from under his feet, slung it over his shoulder and picked up his tray. “I’ll catch you later, dude. Gotta warn Shelby about the spaghetti.” With that, he was gone, completely unaware of the singsongy chorus of “Hi, Josh!” that came his way from the two girls still batting their eyes at him.
The mood at Harry’s Grill was solemn. Monday morning usually found folks chattering a mile a minute: teasing, harassing, catching each other up on their weekend doings. This morning, however, all anyone could think or talk about was the sudden death of Rick Lawson and his poor mother. Such a shame!
“Welp, I tell ya, Lester,” Arthur Landers, who was seated at his usual spot at the U-shaped counter, said to Lester’s back as he fried bacon, “the Good Lord giveth and the Good Lord taketh awayeth. Sometimes I do wonder ’bout His timin’, though. Never once did we think ’bout what would happen if Rick up and died, him being the only legal-eagle in this here town—and apparently he didn’t think about it either. I’d say we’s all up legal creek without our Rick Lawson paddle.”
Lester K. Biggs, owner and the only employee of Harry’s Grill, slowly turned to face Arthur. He held a bacon press in one hand and a long-handled metal spatula in the other. “Honest to Pete, Arthur Landers! Sometimes you say the dumbest things.” He looked like he might be fixing to clock Arthur with his spatula, but instead he drew a deep breath and turned back to the grill with a loud sigh.
“Now Lester, ya know everybody’s a-thinkin�
� the same gol’ dern thing. Right, Doc? Somebody might jist as well say it and git it over with.”
Acting Mayor Gladys McKern, seated to Arthur’s right on her usual stool, yanked at the bottom of her blazer which always rode up on her ample bosom, and swiveled toward Arthur. “I quite agree with Lester, Arthur. This is not the time to be thinking of ourselves. This is a sad time for all of us who have lost such a dear resident of my fine town. Our fine town, of course,” she blustered, darting her eyes away from Arthur and back to the butter she was smearing on her toast she always ordered dry, due to her cholesterol—which she always reminded everyone about. However, since death was on everyone’s minds, she limited herself to smearing one pat this morning. It was time to start taking better care of herself, if she could believe the ongoing evening news’ patter about cholesterol and women and heart attacks. “Death,” Pastor had said one Sunday years ago, “demands we contemplate how we’re living.”
“I can’t stop thinking about his poor mother,” Doc said. “I dropped by the hospital to see Sadie again last evening and she’s not only bruised from head to toe, but she’s still in a terrible state of shock, I’ll tell you. I’m glad she’s got Eugene and Maggie helping her, not to mention everyone at the church. And I hear Roscoe and Sherri and their family are arriving tomorrow, thank goodness. I don’t know how she’s gonna get through this funeral, let alone make it without all the help Rick gave her every single day of his life. And you know, I never once heard him complain about a thing he did for his mom—or anything at all for that matter. I kinda wonder if she won’t move to Des Moines to live with Roscoe now, although I know she and Sherri don’t always get along.” A couple heads nodded. In a small town such as Partonville, grievances seemed to maintain their own life.
Dearest Dorothy, Merry Everything! Page 5